


Fool's Chance

by Raptor_Red



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Pirates in Space!, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4816631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raptor_Red/pseuds/Raptor_Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peridot's first day on her new job as a technician on a human-gem alliance ship doesn't start well. At all. The days after that don't go much better, she's pretty sure getting kidnapped by a notorious pirate captain, being forced to repair her floating trash-heap of a space ship with a mind of its own, dodging shots from the pirate hunter crew of the very alliance ship she had originally signed onto, being chased by bounty hunters and other assorted criminal mobs, dealing with a black hole and several explosions all hadn't been covered by her mission briefing. </p><p>Then again, neither had been falling in love with said notorious pirate captain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It's a quiet afternoon on board today and any crew member would know not to disturb Jasper in her quarters right now, she’s busy watching another episode of “25 Weddings, One Murder and an Evil Twin”. A box of the video tapes is sitting at her feet while she is lounging on her resting platform, they had been part of the booty from one of their last successful raids, along with the necessary playing device. Priceless antiques, and in good condition too, it wouldn’t be hard to find a buyer for these but still Jasper had wanted to convince herself of the quality of the goods and now she’s twelve episodes into the show and finds herself unable to stop. Curse humankind and their addictive entertainment media.

Surely Maria wouldn’t take Bruce back again, not after the stunt he had pulled with Natasha at the hospital. A shot in the leg is the only thing he deserves, Jasper thinks firmly.

She would have to find out about Maria’s choice another time, the intercom comes to live and a message comes through, Lapis is talking to her.

“Jasper, you should come to the bridge immediately. I think we have…a problem.”

“If it’s Citrine freaking out about micrometeroids again tell her the reader is still broken and we won’t die.”

“It’s not about micrometeroids. Jasper I know you’re just watching that ancient human soap opera again, we need you here on the bridge.”

Jasper knows Lapis is bristling. Or well, she would be bristling, if she could. Something really must be up then.

With a grumble and a “On my way.” Jasper turns off the video playing device -actual buttons, this thing really is old as hell- and makes her way toward the bridge of the ship.

It doesn’t take her long, the captain’s quarters are situated on a hallway above and a short distance behind the bridge for fast access if needed. Today she finds the room usually bustling with activity mostly empty, Jasper had given most of the crew a few hours of free time since all duties for today had been completed to her satisfaction and there is no prospective raid to be found in this part of the galaxy which they need to cross to get to the next planet with a trading hub to sell their accumulated booty.

The only gems around right now are Citrine -a small petite gem with a nervous nature that Jasper still appreciates because if anyone could warn them of dangers well in advance it would be her- and Diopside -a quiet, stoic type- they’re both sitting behind their respective consoles, keeping an eye on the vast expanse of space outside and the state of the ship itself.

And of course there is the ever-present Lapis Lazuli, probably the most important member of Jasper’s crew as she is the one keeping the ship together. Literally.  
Lapis had lost her ability to conjure a physical form, her gem is badly cracked and someone must have bound her to this ship after it had happened, whether to save her or to keep her trapped here Lapis had no memory of, the same person had wiped her mind clean. Now the blue, teardrop shaped core of her being rests on a sleek hip-high grey pillar in the center of the bridge -fitted nicely into the remaining interior of the room- with a pattern of silver circuitry surrounding it and running down the pillar to disappear into the flooring.

Lapis has full control of the ship and all parameters, be it the engines, heating, atmospheric pressure or even the lighting. Her eyes are countless cameras installed on the ceilings and walls of the ship’s exterior and interior -a few rooms being exempt from this, like Jasper’s quarters. In any sense of the word, the ship’s hull and every last piece of wire permeating it is Lapis’ body and provides the socket that keeps her gem from cracking completely.

As Jasper walks past Lapis’ pillar to the large front window of the ship she remembers that it hadn’t always been like this, Lapis being in control, that is. When Jasper had taken this ship off the hands of a gang of ship traffickers -specialised in stealing ships, altering their appearance just enough to not be recognizable anymore and then reselling them- Lapis had been proverbially shackled, subdued by a powerful gem interferator so all she could do was take orders. Jasper knew of this technology in theory but had never seen it in action before and she wouldn’t admit it aloud but it kind of horrified her. In simple words, an interferator has to be installed or fitted very close to someone’s gem, it constantly transmits a wave of different kinds of radiation all tuned in just the right frequency to interfere with the gem in question. Turning them into unwilling zombies in the progress. The exact technology behind it is rather complicated and the finetuning process difficult because it could easily fry the trapped gem’s brain completely, so it was rare to see in practice. It’s almost always easier to either find more willing minions or brainwash someone via more conventional means making this particular way more of something reserved for powerful and especially stubborn gems.

It would be a lie to say Jasper had removed the interferator to help Lapis, she had thought of her own gain first and foremost. A gem-powered ship that took any order without question -and that is still a lot more capable than current AI technology- is a great asset. But a gem-powered ship that could react quickly to anything thrown at it while cutting out any middlemen feeding it with information and orders could be an even better asset, especially in the heat of battle. It all depended on the gem themselves and their will to cooperate.

It had definitely been a risk, one Jasper was willed to take. They had towed Lapis’ ship to one of their hide-outs and with all destabilizers and plasma guns aimed at Lapis’ gem -just in case- Jasper had wrenched the interferator off with her bare hands.

Lapis hadn’t been too happy at first, to understate things. But she had agreed to a deal with Jasper, her cooperation in exchange for Jasper’s -and her crew’s- open eyes and ears for a healer. Gems with healing powers strong enough to mend a cracked gem are like the proverbial needle in a haystack and it’s not like Lapis could just walk into the next trading hub or busy city herself to look for one, she’d had no choice.

Over time however, the two of them had warmed up to each other. Jasper learned that Lapis could be trusted to steer the ship and eventually Lapis found to enjoy the amount of freedom she’d been given, the most she’d ever had in as long as she could remember since she still had no memory of how she’d ended up with a broken gem and bound to this pile of metal. Jasper had interrogated the ship traffickers she’d “convinced” to hand Lapis over but they hadn’t known much themselves either, they had found the ship by chance, completely derelict and floating helplessly near the Helix Nebula.

“So what’s the matter.”, Jasper asks, back in the present. She’d reached the large front window of the ship and looks out of it, nothing out of the unusual could be seen from here, only the vast expanse of space with countless stars twinkling faintly in the distance.

“The matter is, we have some company.”, Lapis answers over the intercom which replaced her vocal chords. A flat hologram appears on the window pane in front of Jasper, overlaying the outside world.

“Here’s a feed from our rear cameras, our friends used a cloak to sneak up on us but now they’re close enough for me to get a visual.”

Jasper took a look. In front of her she could see a D-class crescent liner, easily recognizable by its unique sickle shape. A beautiful and well-armored model and in excellent shape too, Jasper notes, it must have been careened only recently because the white of its hull still shines like freshly polished. Definitely not a trading or scouting vessel. Someone means business.

“Pirate hunters.” Citrine says fearfully from her seat left to Jasper.

Jasper ignores her in favor of asking Lapis again, “Got any more information for me, Lapis?”

“We’re pretty far out, this isn’t some human or gem ship on patrol, it’s definitely a hunter.” Lapis zooms in on one side of the other ship’s hull, painted on it is a large pink circle with a stylized rose inside. Oh wonderful, a ship from the human-gem alliance, those never fail to be a pain in the ass, Jasper thinks, her mood going sour.

“Our status?” Jasper always likes to gets the facts first before reaching a decision. Not that that decision would be the most sensible one, but still.

“The left engine still hiccups and the fuel condenser won’t make it for much longer either...I think we can outrun them, but it won’t be easy.”

Fight or flight, Jasper contemplates, still looking at the hologram in front of her. Although….maybe there is a third option.

“Diopside, call all hands on deck, I want everyone on their duties in three minutes from now. Citrine, watch their thermo readings, if they’ll fire anything, I want to know about it before they even think of doing it. And Lapis? Keep this distance for now until I’m ready. I think I’m in the mood for a little walk today.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So what the hell do you even think you’re doing there, Jasper.” Lapis sounds more annoyed about the kind of bullshit Jasper would no doubt pull her into this time than really incredulous.

“Getting ready for a spacewalk, obviously.” Jasper answers while finishing up putting on her spacesuit next to one of the airlocks. She hates the damn thing, it clings too tightly in just the wrong places and she couldn’t move as well in it as in her regular clothing. Gems could technically survive in the harsh conditions of outer space, at least for some time but it weakened them and eventually they would release their physical form because of the cold.

“No shit. But why? You _do_ know you can’t really just punch another ship out of the sky, right?

“Lapis, I was drunk when I said that that one time. And _you_ just lost your privilege to pick the radio station for the next, let’s say, week.”

“Worth it. Okay but what are you really planning to do?”

“I’ll solve our little technician-shortage problem today.”

“So you’ll just hop over there on that alliance ship and ask them nicely for theirs?”

Jasper indulged Lapis in her little spiel, “Sure, maybe shake hands and drink tea with them since I’m at it”, then she gets serious again, “Look Lapis, you said it yourself, our left engine is having trouble, so is the fuel condenser and I have a whole list from our crew of other things that are about to fall apart right under our asses waiting on my desk. We need a new technician. A good one, not one of those bush leaguers like the ones on the last three coffin-ships we raided. Who else would have one if not an alliance ship?”

“A suicide mission it is, then. Same old, same old.”

Jasper has finished packing up everything she’d need in a bag and secured it on her belt. Everything except for a black metallic box, about the size of her palm, she holds it up for Lapis to see with one of her cameras. “Ah but I’m sure they’ll like my little suprise.”

“Wait I thought-”

“The last one, saved it up for a special occasion.”Jasper stows the box away then walks up close to the airlock. “Bring me as close as you can and put all we have in our shields during that time, they won’t like us breathing down on their necks. Then get the hell out of dodge. Give me 20 minutes total, after 5, start flying in zig-zags, if they can’t keep up with you or stop completely, wait. And when time’s up do a full 180 and pick me up again, I’ll exit on the right.”

For once, Lapis doesn’t snark back, she simply says “Aye aye.” and the intercom goes silent.

Jasper summons her helmet and draws the visor down until clicks with the rest of the suit around her neck, sealing it. She could take one of the pods to fly over to the alliance ship, it would be safer in some regards but she’d be blown to pieces by their lasers and cannons in a matter of moments, just her body alone however would be too small of a target to be picked up by their sensors.

If she failed to get a footing on the other ship after Lapis throws her out she’d be lost in space and Lapis couldn’t just turn around right away to pick her up again, she’d be busy shaking off her pursuers. She could come back later possibly, but gods know how many miles Jasper would have drifted off by then. Space is huge and gems are rather small in comparison, after all. Jasper only has one shot and she wouldn’t fail, she’s sure of it.

Looking out of the small window of the airlock, Jasper can see the alliance ship coming closer very fast, or well, Lapis is the one coming closer to them, actually.

“Ready by three.”, Lapis says over the intercom.

“One.” The element of surprise is with them, Jasper thinks, the other’s don’t expect their prey to suddenly turn around and come for them.

“Two.” They aren’t stupid either, though. Jasper has to hold onto the wall nearest to her as a heavy tremor runs through the ship, the enemy has opened fire. Right now, Lapis pumps as much energy as possible into their shields, she couldn’t keep this up for long but she wouldn’t have to.

“Three!” The airlock door opens and Jasper leaps.

Lapis had flown up to one of the crescent’s “arms” and tilted the side where Jasper had stood closer to their hull, she doesn’t brake for Jasper to get out, passing underneath the other ship in full motion. Sparks are flying all around Jasper as Lapis’ shields get hit by every laser the alliance ship has to offer, Jasper is right in the line of fire as well but by sheer luck, she doesn’t get hit and fried instantly.

Lapis angle had been good, the acceleration Jasper had picked up from her jump carries her over the short distance to the other ship, she’s coming in too fast even. With a grunt Jasper hits the hull and bounces back off, she fails to grab the first of many handles that are installed all over the ship for easier maintenance access. But her fingers catch on the second one and Jasper holds on tightly. She doesn’t have much time and starts looking for a hatch immediately.

From her current angle Jasper could see her own ship, its sleek and silvery form picking up speed to get out of the brunt of the alliance ship’s attack as fast as possible. It darts off almost like a fish in water, a fish weighing several hundred tons easily. Jasper couldn’t help but admire Lapis’ maneuvering abilities. The alliance ship doesn’t waste any time either though, it’s accelerating as well and Jasper gets back to the task at hand. Finding an entrance.

It doesn’t take her long, a hatch sits only a dozen feet away, seeming just to wait for Jasper to open it and climb inside. The inner door -there to keep the vacuum of space where it belonged, outside- is locked, though. Of course a pirate hunter ship would take measures not to be boarded by enemies quite so easily. Instead of bothering with the passcode the door demands, Jasper gives it the hardest headbutt with her helmet she could muster, after three more of those, it gives in and lands on the opposite wall of the ship’s interior with a loud crash. Well that was easier than expected, Jasper thinks and clambers out of the small hatch chamber.

She now stands on a long and slightly curved hallway, white walls, floor and ceilings like the hull from where she’d just come from. In regular intervals Jasper could see doors, all of them closed for now but they could open with a swoosh to let someone through at any moment. The broken hatch door had likely caused an alert to go off somewhere so there is no point in trying to stay hidden anyway. Time for the ace up Jasper’s sleeve to come into play. She pulls the small black box out of her pocket, puts her fingers into several holes on its surface, twists it and the device activates with a satisfactory beep.

Its effect isn’t immediately apparent in the empty hallway but Jasper is sure it works, it has to. She tests it out just in case though by letting go of the small black box in her hands and watching it slowly drift between her hands, completely weightless. Jasper takes it again and packs it away, now sure that it would do its job. She starts making her way down the still empty hallway.

Jasper loves using anti-gravity bombs, maximal distraction and havoc with minimal effort. Activating one is all it needs and everything not bolted to the floor or otherwise fixed starts floating around like a balloon, including people. Unless one wears special boots originally designed to make maintenance or repair walks on a ship’s hull easier because they create small gravitational fields essentially “gluing” the wearer to the floor, like Jasper right now. Normally no one bothers to wear these unless necessary since they are rather clunky and heavy and anti-gravity bombs are very hard to come by, it wouldn’t make sense to keep them on all the time and risk the disadvantage during battle just because of the low chance an enemy might have an anti-gravity bomb.

The bomb itself doesn’t mess with gravity, it simply disturbs the device on board of every ship that creates an artificial gravity similar to the one of a planet. Jasper has reached an intersection and she could see its effects now, a tablet computer floats past her without a care in the world that it shouldn’t do that.

Jasper thinks about where to go for a moment, she had entered in one of the arms, and she is here to find a technician, those would most likely hang around in or nearby the engine room, the heart of every ship. On a crescent liner, that would be right in the middle of it, somewhere behind the bridge. Jasper doesn’t ponder on what to do if she couldn’t find a technician in the engine room, instead, she continues down the hallway she’d come from, following its slight curve. She also unsheathes her sword from its place on her belt.

As she comes closer to the center, Jasper could hear different alarms now, she was responsible for most, if not all, and she’d like to say they sound like music to her ears but fact is, they’re fucking annoying.

Even more annoying are the gems in her path, most try to stop her in some way and all of them yell some variation of “Stop, intruder!” but Jasper simply shoves or pulls them aside easily, like floating feathers. She isn’t one to shirk away from a fight but she doesn’t have the time to stab all of them and then crush their gems to finish them. Lucky for them.

Finally Jasper finds the large circular door to the bridge, it slides open for her and Jasper is greeted by the commotion inside. About a dozen gems or so are drifting around in here, along with a plethora of items like more tablet computers, chairs, some weapons, wires and other tech-y looking junk Jasper can’t place right now and doesn’t care to. The room itself is larger than Lapis’ bridge but the set-up is similar, a large window replaces the wall opposite of where Jasper stands and a semi-circle of control boards runs along it.

A lanky gem with creamy skin -probably a pearl- shouts: “And can someone please turn off these alarms?!”

A darker skinned gem replies “On it.”, holds onto one of the control boards as she floats past it and smashes it with a gauntlet unceremoniously. It dies with several electric sparks and the alarms go silent.

The first one to spot Jasper is a small teal gem on the other side of the room, she starts pointing at her frantically and yells: “PIRATE!!” and in an instant, all eyes are on Jasper.

Next to the teal gem and the window Jasper sees another door, the one leading to the engine room. Making her way toward it -through the chaos of flying objects and gems- she says “That’s _captain_ pirate for you. Or Jasper.”

A short and stout purple gem pipes up, “Captain? _You_ are that ship’s captain!?”  
It’s as if Jasper had just personally insulted every present gem’s kindergarten nurse because they all start coming at her instantly. Or at least they try to. The most successful one is the purple gem that had just yelled at her, her weapon is a whip and she manages to get it wrapped around Jasper’s hip, she hadn’t thought that move all the way through however, Jasper gives its rope a firm pull and sends the smaller gem flying against the wall with a thunk, the whip dematerializes, letting Jasper continue on her path.

Not for long though, she gets knocked to the floor by the taller, darker gem who had used the control board as a makeshift spring board and leaped toward Jasper from there.

Narrowly dodging a gauntlet-punch to the face -it hits and cracks the floor instead- Jasper pushes the other gem off of herself, she goes the same direction as the purple gem, giving her a warning “Watch out Amethyst!”, but too late, they crash with an oof coming from Amethyst.

It’s almost comical to watch these pirate hunters be reduced to helplessness by the anti-gravity bomb and Jasper can’t help but snort, “Great show you clowns are putting on for me here, I have to say.”

The last one in Jasper’s way is the lanky pearl, instead of using her weapon immediately, she gets a hold of Jasper’s enormous hair as she tries to get past the floating gem. There’s a moment of scuffling and snarling and squawking before Jasper can grab the pearl’s arm only moments before she would have gotten stabbed in the back by her spear. Jasper slams her against the floor but not without painfully losing a few strands of her mane. Really seeing one of the hunters up close for the first time Jasper notices something on their uniform and her eyes go wide. Star sigils. She lets out a barking laugh.

“What’s so funny, pirate?”, the pearl hisses while still recovering from being thrown against the floor

“Well, it’s just that I thought my first encounter with the Crystal Gems would be more of a challenge! The bane of every pirate this side of the galaxy, rendered powerless by a simple anti-gravity bomb.”

“Hey watch your mouth, I bet you found that damn thing on your daily round of muck-raking in the sewers by luck!”, the purple gem -Amethyst- throws in, she’d successfully untangled herself from the other gem, if Jasper’s memory of the fearfully told stories she’d heard whispered in many taverns served her right, her name is Garnet.

Jasper ignores the insult, instead she quickly gets up to close the rest of the distance to the engine room door. “I guess I should thank you for taking out my competition so effectively, and I’d love to play with you deformed balloon animals some more but I’m on a tight schedule.Oh but one last thing, your hatch security is pathetic, you may want to look into that.”

“Wait, where-”, is the last thing Jasper hears from the pearl before the door slides shut behind herself, she punches the small locking panel next to it to keep these failures out for now. She could have finished them single-handedly! But she had. No. Time. Grinding her teeth she confirms that fact with a glance at her digital wrist band. She had 7 minutes left to find a technician and then an exit until Lapis would pick her up and Jasper couldn’t be too late to that, if she kept her waiting, Lapis’ shields would give up under the brunt of a full attack very soon. No one of the alliance ship’s crew would even have to do the aiming and shooting, on defense mode the ship would blast an enemy that comes up this close via auto-target.

The engine room looks like a whole different world compared to the bridge, tinted in red warning lights a labyrinth of gridded metal walkways goes every which way between steel tanks, forests of pipes and more large control panels with countless purposes Jasper has no clue of. She lets her helmet disappear so she could look around the perimeter better, seeing no one, she hurries down one of the walkways at random.

Precious seconds tick by without a trace of a technician until-

Jasper could hear angry muttering coming from around the next corner, as quietly as her boots on the metal flooring would let her, Jasper starts to sneak up onto the source, hoping the person would be what she is looking for.

A green gem stands with her back to Jasper a short distance away, her complete attention on the device in front of her, a sphere with three metallic rings swirling around it in lazy circles. No doubt the alliance ship’s artificial gravity generator.

“Come on there’s nothing wrong with you, why won’t you work you piece of shit!”, The other gem scolds the device, giving it a kick to its base for good measure. Her ranting is just what Jasper needs, the noise covering the sounds of her own footsteps. She grins when she realizes that the other gem is a peridot. No doubt she’s a technician.

Another round of expletives from her is cut short though, the intercom comes to life with a static-y frizzle and Jasper could hear the pearl’s voice, she must have gotten a hold of one of the speakers.

“Attention everyone, we have an intruder, a dangerous pirate, to be exact.”

“Also she’s ugly.”, comes from Amethyst.

Pearl continues, “Right now she’s in the engine room, we don’t know what she wants to do in there but we have to stop her, all hands to the bridge immediately!”

The message had made the peridot look up, at the words “engine room”, she turns around fully, spotting Jasper immediately.

“Oh no.”, her face contorts into some kind of scared grimace and then she’s running away from Jasper as fast as her legs would carry her.

Of course the only other person equipped with gravity boots on this ship turns out to be the technician, the one Jasper has five and a half minutes left to catch.

Groaning in annoyance, Jasper takes up the pursuit. She loses her momentarily between tanks of spare fuel.

“You can come out, I promise I won’t hurt you.”, Jasper tells the engine room. “Much.”, she adds in a mutter. She stops walking completely for a moment and only listens. From behind the row of tanks to her left she could hear the _dunk dunk dunk_ of Peridot’s boots, Jasper stays quiet and lets her pass before going after her again, that was the right decision because Peridot runs right into a dead-end, her walkway ends with three sides flanked by railings, the only thing that would stop someone from falling down into a large array of twisting and turning cogwheels. She turns around but Jasper has cornered her already.

Squeaking in panic she starts fiddling with her right arm -no doubt to get out some gadget to defend herself, peridots come with prosthetic attachments that are equipped with tools which help them do their tech-jobs but of course they could be used for other purposes if needed.

Jasper isn’t having any of that, she grabs Peridot’s right arm and with her free hand she forms a fist and punches her square in the face. Hard.

In a flash -and a scream- Peridot releases her physical form. Jasper had almost forgotten how little it takes to get a non-combatant gem to do that, and the triangular core of Peridot's being simply clatters to the floor. Before it could fall to its demise into the cogwheels below Jasper snatches it and stows it away into her belt satchel. After that, she takes out some strong steel wire and ties Peridots arms and legs together for easier transportation.Those aren’t part of her projected body and she’d have to reattach them after reforming. Jasper makes sure she’d pocketed all of her fingers as well -a technician without hands is no use to her- and then she starts to jog to the next exit door.

She doesn’t take the one leading back to the bridge this time, instead she opts for one on the other side of the room, it takes her to a similar hallway Jasper had been in before, she must be in the other arm of the ship now. Perfect, because she’d told Lapis that she would make her exit on this side.

Two minutes left, Jasper runs as fast as she can with Peridot’s limbs under one arm. More miscellaneous junk floats past her.

After one minute and thirty seconds she finally finds another hatch, from the inside it opens easily, no code necessary. Jasper summons her helmet and its visor again and counts down the last ten seconds on her wrist band, opening the outer hatch door when time’s up.

Jasper had left the inner door open on purpose and the escaping air propels her out into the depths of space. She’d also left the anti-gravity bomb to float around in the engine room, sooner or later someone would find and destroy it -it couldn’t be disabled after activating- but that couldn’t be helped, it’d definitely buy them some more time to get away though.

Right on cue Lapis pulls up, once again she doesn’t stop for Jasper to get on and in another flurry of sparks and laser shots Jasper has to get a footing. It’s more difficult this time because one of her hands is occupied with holding Peridot’s arms and legs, so instead she uses her feet more, grinding her boots against the metal of the hull and leaving a long scratch on it in the process she slows down enough to grab a handle with just one hand.

Soon she finds the airlock and after closing it behind her, Jasper drops her precious cargo with a huff.

Lapis isn’t too pleased by her return, she says “I know you fucking scratched my hull. Again.”

“Aw come on Lapis, I bring you a present and this is how you greet your captain? I hope you have one of the holding cells ready because we have a guest.”, Jasper answers and holds up Peridot’s green gem for Lapis to behold with one of her ceiling cameras.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To say it with the words of the Pirate King herself: ~~Gentlemen~~ Gems, hoist the colors.
> 
> Hoo boy here we go, I have a feeling this fic is going to be long, so this is just a little intro-chapter to set things up. I really want to practice my character- and worldbuilding with this project (Maybe it seems odd to you that I picked our homeworld-loyal Jasper as the pirate captain? Don't worry, I'll explain how that came to be among many other things.)
> 
> Also I didn't go with the hand design of space ships we've seen in canon because Lapis would just constantly flip everyone off.
> 
> Also also, this is definitely not going to be Stockholm Syndrome: The Fanfiction, I've read my fair share of trashy lesbian pirate novels and while I love a lot of tropes in these, that one is not among 'em.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and feel free to leave me a comment with your opinion on this AU or my writing!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout-out to the alien race and planet name generators on scifiideas.com because I'm super bad at pulling that kinda stuff out of my ass.

When Peridot reforms she finds herself alone. It always feels weird, like the first deep lungful of air after holding her breath for a long time. And like being dragged from underneath a pile of cozy blankets. Both at the same time. The conflicting sensations aren’t why she hates the process though, it’s the feeling of helplessness afterwards.

On Homeworld there are gems for any task that needs to be done, be it constructing new ships or buildings, fighting, storing knowledge and of course designing new gems for new tasks or improving already existing blueprints.

At some point one of these damned gem-designers must have had an idea something like “Wouldn’t it be neat if gems meant to repair ships and other vehicles could carry all their tools with them at any given time?” In theory that sounds like a great idea but in practice it means every time Peridot has to reform, she is missing all her appendages from the elbows and knees downward. The prosthetic replacements she has for them -while being small wonders of engineering and technology- can’t retreat into her gem with her and have to be reattached afterwards. Usually by someone helping her, Peridot remembers that one time she’d fallen off the smooth hull of large freight ship while it had been sitting in the drydock for repairs.

A friendly and warm ametrine had been the one to assist her with putting her arms and legs on back then.

It’s not the ametrine’s fault -who’d only been doing her job as a nurse just like Peridot had been doing hers before she’d fallen- and treated Peridot nothing but kindly and with respect but still she hates her for having seen her like this. Completely useless.

Although, right now Peridot wishes the other gem were here after all. Instead, she is sitting in a holding cell all on her own, trapped by a faintly crackling yellow force field that would give her a painful zap were she to touch it. Not that she could, unless she crawls all the way across the floor of the cell entrance. It could be worse though, someone had lain her arms and legs down right in front of her, which means she only has to wriggle forward a little to reach them.

The first arm is the most difficult, Peridot has to hold it in place with her thighs, put her elbow into the corresponding socket and then twist it around halfway until it locks around her stump with a click and activates, making five of the ten fingers that had been scattered on the floor float to their right place as well. With their help Peridot manages to complete the rest of her form much more easily.

She feels somewhat better afterwards. Emphasis on _somewhat_. She’s still the prisoner of a dangerous pirate, hugging her legs a little tighter, Peridot remembers the huge gem that had knocked her out in the engine room back on her ship and all she can think about is _why_.

For ransom? Pfft, Peridot isn’t delusional, they’d get a sack of dirty rags for her if they’re lucky. To sell her off to some slave trader? But those usually specialize in other alien species, gems are mostly made to carry out their one job and unless that’s a sought-after one they don’t bring much on the black market. Then again, maybe technicians currently sell like hotcakes? Who knows, Peridot certainly doesn’t, the most illegal thing she’d ever done in her short life was download a bootleg copy of an ancient human game called Space Invaders. And she still sometimes has nightmares about someone finding out about it.

Three hours later her jailers still haven’t shown up, she’s started pacing around in her cell like a trapped -and scared- animal in the meantime as a distraction. She’d also tried cussing for a little while, it’s not like anyone could hear her, Peridot’s cell is the only one holding anyone right now, as far as she could see, the other ones down the hallway are all empty. She’s not sure if that’s a good or a bad sign, but before she can think about that some more, she could hear footsteps coming toward her cell.

Soon after, the large orange gem that had kidnapped her is standing behind the other side of the force field of the cell, she starts speaking with a deep voice: “Reformed already, I see. Good good, the sooner you can get started on your work, the better.”

A second, bodiless voice from the intercom joins her, “What even makes you think she’ll do it, remember the last time we had an alliance soldier on here? She went batshit on us after we found her hiding in the cargo, took out four of our crew and almost blasted a hole in my hull before you got her, damn these ~oh so heroic~ bastards.”

The orange gem wordlessly listened to the other person’s rant, a smug smirk growing on her face during it, directed at Peridot.

“Don’t worry, she will. Because she tried running away from me in the alliance ship’s engine room. What we have right here is a little coward.” She leans forward a little, leering, “Isn’t that so, Peridot?”

Peridot doesn’t know what to say, she wants to defend herself but also she doesn’t want to make the pirate angry, just because she has no death-wish doesn’t mean she’s a coward! Probably. Peridot settles on bristling and clenching her fingers into fists, she tries not to stammer when she replies: “W-what do you even want with me?!” It comes out raspy because she hasn’t spoken in so long.

The pirate steps back again, “Where are my manners”. Peridot wants to roll her eyes but her common sense keeps her from doing so, what manners? She’d just insulted her to the face.

“I should introduce myself first, our last meeting was cut short after all. My name is Jasper, I’m the captain of this ship. The voice you heard on the intercom would be my lovely assistant-

“Lovely assistant, my ass.”

Jasper goes on, unphased, “-Lapis Lazuli.”

Since neither of this had answered Peridot’s original question, Jasper elaborates, “Right now we are looking to fill an open position for a technician, that’s where you come into play.”

“...What happened to the old technician?”

“She had an accident. With the airlock. Better be careful around it, we wouldn’t want the same thing happening to you.” The way Jasper said it tells Peridot that nothing about that airlock incident had been accidental. She swallows.

“So what do you say to my job offer.”, Jasper asks, steepling her fingers, except it sounds more like a statement than a question. As if Peridot has any choice anyways.

“A-alright, I’ll do it, I’ll fix your ship. And then you’ll let me go?”

Jasper lets out a barking laugh instead of answering before disabling the force field with a sweeping gesture of her hand over the control panel to her right. Then Peridot gets pulled unceremoniously from her spot in the cell, Jasper starts walking down the hallway and Peridot falls into step with her -having to walk much faster than her, since Jasper’s size lets her make huge steps- it’s not like she could just run way, that would be her death sentence for sure.

“Let’s introduce you to the crew first before you can get started, though. Lapis? Call everyone to the main deck. Also, see, that’s why I like doing job interviews, they always go so smoothly.”

Lapis doesn’t even reply anything.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The main deck is a large circular room in the center of the ship, or a hall actually, big enough to fit the entire crew inside with space to spare. Overhead a window replaces the ceiling, it’s not a single pane however, a complex design, like a mandala but more angular, spans it entirely. the same pattern is mirrored by one in dark blue lines on the light grey floor underneath. Peridot isn’t sure what exactly she’d expected a pirate ship to look like, but probably not so fancily decorated.

In a matter of minutes the room fills with gems of all colors and sizes, they come in through the many doors that run along the wall between window and floor and assemble in a rough semicircle around Jasper and Peridot, who is still standing next to her.

She’s never had this many eyes on her, the eyes of a notorious gang of pirates, at that. She doesn’t want to meet their curious gazes, so she focuses on Jasper standing in front of her instead.

For the first time Peridot really takes in the captain’s appearance, now that she isn’t being hunted or scrutinized by her herself. Her size is of course the most noticeable thing about her, followed by the stripes on her skin, her impressive muscles and her unruly mane which she wears open. Peridot wonders if that’s supposed to daunt enemies in a way she doesn’t really understand or if she just likes it that way.

Today Jasper is also wearing a long, billowing cape, Peridot hadn’t seen it on her on the day they had...met, so it can’t be part of her projected form. Actual fabric, huh? How flashy. The rest of her clothing is surprisingly tasteful though, if a little out-dated. Under her dark burgundy cape she’s wearing a blouse in a similar muted shade, it’s wide-ish but not baggy and kept in place by a broad black belt around her waist which also holds her sheathed sword and a plasma gun. Her black pants are a little more form-fitting and tugged neatly into a pair of dark brown boots.

Nothing too gaudy, but still not Homeworld style at all, Peridot thinks as she considers her own rather spartan outfit.

Mumbling chatter from the crew had permeated the room but now it dies down instantly with a simple gesture from Jasper. It’s as if everyone tries to stand a little straighter when Jasper starts striding up and down in front of them. The way she carries herself, with her head held high, shoulders broad and hands linked behind her back practically leeches authority. When she finally speaks her voice is booming, loud enough for everyone to hear, Peridot almost startles.

“I won’t keep you from your duties for long, but I had to take the time to introduce you all to our newest crew member. Peridot will be our technician from now on.” At that, Jasper turns toward Peridot and now everyone is _really_ looking at her. Is she supposed to say hello? She hopes not, she’d rather spit in their faces.

Jasper goes on, “She practically _threw_ herself at me and the opportunity, and who could blame her, really! I wouldn’t want to work for those warmed over rhinestone-rubbers from the alliance either.”

A mean snicker runs through the crowd both at the insult and the obvious lie about Peridot being here on her own volition.

“However, Peridot still needs time to settle in, I’m sure you all will do your best to help her, play nice with her, poof her if she tries anything but only crush her in dire situations and if there’s no other way, you’ll also have to explain yourself to me if you do that, so choose your actions wisely.”

Peridot’s eyes go wide, that’s what falls under “playing nice” for Jasper!?

She pauses for a short time, letting her instructions register.

“Understood?”

A discordant chorus of “Aye ayes” comes from the crew as an answer and at another sign from Jasper they start to disperse, to get back to their tasks.

Jasper calls one of them -a small yellow gem with a buzz cut- back before she could leave the room with the others.

“Citrine, who else is staffing the bridge right now?”

Citrine’s voice is very light and high-pitched in comparison, but the short gem doesn’t look intimidated by Jasper and her answer is sure and competent, “Diopside, Spinel and the two Pyrites, captain.”

“Good, they’ll manage without you for some time, I need you to accompany Peridot to our engine room, the left engine isn’t working properly and I want her -you-”, Jasper turns toward Peridot for a moment, “to take a look at it first things first. Lapis will help you keep an eye on her as well”, she finishes while looking at Citrine again.

“Yes captain!” Citrine gestures for Peridot to walk in front of her and off they go, leaving the main deck and Jasper behind. It doesn’t take them long to get to their destination, the engine room isn’t far away but still Peridot gets to see a small portion of the ship, a few fluorescent ceiling strips are flickering or broken -Jasper hadn’t lied about needing a technician- but otherwise the hallways are clean and orderly.

This ship’s engine room looks similar enough to the one Peridot had worked in on the alliance ship, she takes one of the many metal walkways purposely and surely, knowing just where it would lead her. Citrine is still at her back and almost bumps into Peridot when she suddenly stops in front of two cylindrical turbine-like contraptions, they’re big, a foot taller than Peridot and twice as long and emit a steady rhythm of sound, like someone drumming slowly and far away. Or at least one of them is, Peridot realizes, the left engine’s beat is slightly off, sputtering every now and then even.

Wasting no time, Peridot gets to work, aware of Citrine watching her every movement.

Half an hour later she’s shoulder deep in the engine’s cogwheel and wire guts, the drumming louder after she’d removed a protective metal cover.

“A-are you sure it won’t explode on us?”, Citrine suddenly pipes up, sounding a bit worried.

“Do you think I’d be shoving my arm and head inside it if I thought it could explode?”

“Just asking.”

Citrine goes quiet again and for another long time the only sound is the engine’s “music”. That is until the little yellow gem becomes bored and decides to chat with her some more, “It’s not so bad, you know.”

“I beg to differ, these coolant pipes haven’t been flushed in ages.” Peridot mutters while concentrating on flushing said pipes with some cleaning solvent stored in one of her arms.

“No, I mean being a pirate. It’s not so bad.”

Peridot slowly extricates her upper body from the depths of the engine’s innards, glancing at Citrine incredulously, who continues, “I used to be like you, from Homeworld, that is. I know you served on an alliance ship but I don’t think you were born on one of their planets...right?”

Peridot raises an eyebrow but nods, also indicating for Citrine to go on with her story.

“Citrines like me are assigned assembly jobs, communication devices for me, specifically. Except not even the whole device, only parts for it. It was literally the same three movements over and over again but I guess producing a gem to do it was still easier and cheaper than building a robot for the same task?” Citrine fiddles with her own fingers, maybe at the memory? Peridot also notices that the other’s gem is situated on her right elbow, it glimmers faintly in the muted light of the room.

“I’ve always hated it but then one day they made us get on a big ship, to ferry us to a different planet for whatever reason. Jasper hunted it down to raid it, and that was the day when I joined her crew. I had to earn it first, but eventually she started giving me more and more responsibility and now I’m the navigator!”

Peridot could almost feel the pride in Citrine’s voice and her admiration for Jasper too. She’d been nothing but a cogwheel in an uncaring machine, not even an important one at that but then Jasper had given her a purpose.

“So now you think Jasper is one of the good guys? That she’s just going around saving gems from boredom and monotony left and right out of the goodness of her heart? By pillaging and raiding and killing who knows how many people?”

This time Peridot’s mouth had been faster than her mind, and she regrets it instantly. Insulting a pirate’s way of life is probably a very bad idea and even though Citrine looks small Peridot doesn’t make the mistake of underestimating her, after all, Jasper doesn’t look like the kind of person who would honor an inept clod on her crew.

Thankfully, Citrine doesn’t send her back into her gem (or worse). Peridot is glad for it, it had been her annoyance who'd said those words. Did she really think she'd just happily become a pirate after getting a punch to the face and being kidnapped? 

“No. No Jasper -or I, or anyone else of the crew- isn’t one of the good guys. But you know who else isn’t? Homeworld.”

“What about the alliance?”

Citrine shrugs nonchalantly, “I don’t see the alliance coming to your rescue, so take that as you will.”

Peridot thinks she should probably defend Homeworld, something instinctive buried deep inside her tells her to, but weakly so. The bitter fact is, the diamond authority or even the alliance couldn’t care less about a simple technician like herself falling victim to some random pirates, an insignificant sacrifice in the grand scheme of things in this galaxy. Suddenly Peridot feels very angry, angry at Jasper, at Citrine and her words, at whoever idiot had assigned her to the crescent liner she’d worked on only a day ago. Angry at the diamonds themselves. She doesn’t show her emotions though, and it wouldn’t help her situation anyways.

Hoping to change the subject for now, Peridot puts the metal cover back into place on the engine, then she turns back to Citrine: “I did some much needed maintenance but I’m fairly sure the main problem isn’t the engine itself, my best guess would be that something is blocking any commands from the processing center to it, I’d have to take a look at that to know for sure, though.”

“Sure, you’re the technician. But we’ll have to go to the bridge first, the captain doesn’t allow anyone to just walk into the processing center.”

Peridot briefly wonders why that is. Sure, a lot of damage could be done in there but the same thing goes for the engine room. She hadn’t told Citrine because it didn’t matter since Peridot still has no death wish, but if she had wanted to she could have blown the whole ship up by tweaking the right valves and cutting the right wires in the engine.

They make the rest of the trek to the bridge in silence, when they reach it eventually, Peridot can’t help but stare a little. As a technician her place is usually deep inside any ship, the engine room, the narrow pipe-stuffed paths underneath the regular hallways or other uncomfortably tight spaces where there were fried circuit boards to be replaced. Her job is to keep ships running, not steer or command them. Of course she’s been to several bridges -sometimes things break in those too- but not often and never for long.

Citrine gets the captain’s attention and while she explains the situation to her, Peridot's eyes settle on some kind of display pillar or stand next to the two of them, or rather, the small object resting on it and the various wires extending from said object. It couldn’t be.

She takes a step forward to get a closer look and yes, it’s a blue gem laying in front of her, although it’s badly broken, almost shattered completely, Peridot realizes its purpose immediately. She’d learned about this kind of technology, sure, but actually seeing it work before her eyes is a different matter. How did they get the socket to keep the gem from cracking all the way, though?

“Nah-ah, no touching!”

Peridot pulls her fingers back from the pillar as if she’d burned herself and takes a step away from it too, for good measure. Jasper and Citrine turn around to look at Peridot, but neither of them had said the words, they’d come from the intercom. Finally she puts two and two together.

“Wait, you’re Lapis Lazuli? You’re- That is- ...This is a gem-powered ship?”

“Yes I’m kind of running this whole place, and with “kind of” I mean that's what I do.”

Meanwhile Jasper has closed the short distance between them and Peridot directs her next question at her: “But I don’t see an interferator, how do you get her to do what you want?”

“Hey I can still hear you, you know.”, Lapis throws in.

“I don’t need her to get to do what I want. Lapis is a member of my crew like any other gem on this ship, she’s certainly proven herself to be a capable coxswain.”

While Peridot is busy making a somewhat baffled face -she’d certainly never heard of a gem willingly following any orders while trapped- Jasper continues, “Citrine just told me you need to go to the processing center for your repairs? I’ll have to go with you, let’s waste no time.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After they had climbed down a previously hidden metal staircase which Jasper’d let a door to appear on the bridge floor and after she’d punched in a very long code on the control panel of the second door at the bottom of said staircase, Jasper and Peridot are standing in the processing center of the ship. She thinks she understands now why Jasper hadn't let her enter without supervision.

If the engine room is the heart of a ship, the processing center would be its brain. Or in this case, the spinal cord, since Lapis’ gem is already playing that part.

It certainly looks impressive enough to show its importance, the room itself isn’t that big, but it seems to stretch into infinity because every inch of its surface is covered in mirror tiles, except for a path made of opaque blue ones in the middle, each one sized about half a foot by half a foot.

Peridot recognizes the tile layout -even though the mirrors are unfamiliar. She focuses on the blue path in order to not get nauseated by the endless army of Jasper’s and her reflections and quickly walks up to the what she thinks should be the correct tile, somewhere in the lower left corner of the room, with Jasper close behind her. With a double-tap from one of Peridot’s fingers, it slides away smoothly, exposing the complicated looking circuitry behind.

Without preamble, she carefully pushes her arm in, once again shoulder-deep like in the engine before. Lapis’ intercom must have a speaker down here too and she makes good use of it, obviously not happy with Peridot’s “treatment” for her engine problem.

“Ew, it’s like she has her hands in my guts! Jasper I swear if she rewires me so I can only talk like a drunk Visiri mercenary you have to kill her very painfully.”

Jasper seems more amused than concerned, still her words make Peridot concentrate _very_ hard on her task at hand: “You heard the lady, if you rewire her so she can only talk like a drunk Visiri mercenary, I’ll have to kill you very painfully.”, then a little quieter, “but just between the two of us, I think that would be hilarious.”

Peridot feels like sweating nervously, unsure of what to reply to that, she certainly doesn’t do any rewiring but a moment later she pulls a small blue octahedron from the electronic mesh, no bigger than one of her fingers, it’s original bright color tinged with a burnt black.

“So that’s the problem.”

“What, this tiny thing?”, Jasper frowns at the object.

“It’s part of the conduit from Lapis'gem to the engine, it’s fried, meaning the command can’t travel properly, but because this one is just one of many the chain isn’t broken completely, that’s why the engine hiccups.”

Jasper had been listening to Peridot’s explanation intently, then she says, “Can you fix it?”

Peridot’s first impulse is to say no but she remembers the airlock and the former technician’s accident with it. “Yes, but I’ll need a replacement piece for this one, it should be available in any bigger ship part shop.”

Pleased by her answer, Jasper nods, “I’ll get you your replacement part, we’ll be arriving on Sulis in a few days, it shouldn’t be a problem to get one there.”

Peridot pauses putting the mirror tile back, “Sulis? You mean the small planet sitting in the middle of a giant asteroid field only someone who has taken a life will know how to cross? Where enough money will buy you anything you can imagine and anything you can’t, if someone doesn’t kill you, steal your money and sell your corpse first, _that_ Sulis?”

“The very one.”

“...I thought that’s only a myth.”

“Ah, that’s what we _want_ you to think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oop, sorry still not a very interesting chapter, I had to do more setting things up, but expect actual stuff to happen next time, when we will visit ~~Space Tortuga~~ Sulis. 
> 
> also I got some comments to please not abandon this fic and while I can't promise that 100% because u never kno what life throws at u I can still soothe your worries, I've already mapped most things out, I know how I want this fic to end and I'm full of worldbuilding ideas, so I'm really confident that I can finish it! 
> 
> Also I gotta say this: If you catch any weird sounding phrases or grammar hmu pls, I'm still fairly new to this and English isn't my first language. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> To say it with the words of the Pirate King herself: ~~Gentlemen~~ Gems, hoist the colors.
> 
> Hoo boy here we go, I have a feeling this fic is going to be long, so this is just a little intro-chapter to set things up. I really want to practice my character- and worldbuilding with this project (Maybe it seems odd to you that I picked our homeworld-loyal Jasper as the pirate captain? Don't worry, I'll explain how that came to be among many other things.) 
> 
> Also I didn't go with the hand design of space ships we've seen in canon because Lapis would just constantly flip everyone off. 
> 
> Also also, this is definitely not going to be Stockholm Syndrome: The Fanfiction, I've read my fair share of trashy lesbian pirate novels and while I love a lot of tropes in these, that one is not among 'em. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and feel free to leave me a comment with your opinion on this AU or my writing!


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